Caitlin MacNeal

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Caitlin MacNeal is a News Writer based in Washington, D.C. Before joining TPM, Caitlin interned and wrote for the Huffington Post, the Sunlight Foundation and Slate. She is a graduate of Georgetown University.

Sen. Marco Rubio reacted with indignation on Wednesday to comments by former Florida Gov. Chralie Crist, who earlier this week explained his decision to switch parties from Republican to Democrat was fueled in part by racism within the GOP.

"I think it's ridiculous and silly," Rubio told Fox News host Neil Cavuto. "First of all, I'm even cautious to even dignify that with a serious response. My prediction is by the end of this election, even Democrats will be embarrassed that Charlie Crist became a Democrat."

Crist had explained to Fusion's Jorge Ramos on Tuesday why he left the Republican party and why he was now running for his old office as a Democrat.

Bill Nye, the "Science Guy," took on CNN "Crossfire" host S.E. Cupp and a Heritage Foundation economist in a debate on climate change on Tuesday, following the release of a new White House climate change report.

Cupp accused the White House of using "scare tactics" with the American public on climate change, arguing that the current strategy has not moved public opinion.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who is leading the House select committee to investigate the Benghazi attack, on Wednesday advised his fellow House Republicans to refrain from fundraising off of the committee.

However, just before Gowdy made the comment, the National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a fundraising email mentioning the select committee and asking supporters to help fund Republicans so that they can continue efforts to investigate Benghazi, as the Huffington Post noted.

MSNBC has apologized in a statement and on-air for the "ill-advised" Cinco de Mayo segment that it aired on "Way Too Early" Monday, but a similar bit later that day with the same producer on the network's main morning show, "Morning Joe," has gone unnoticed.

Louis Burgdorf, the producer for both shows, brought back the sombrero, maraca, and tequila he used on "Way Too Early" for the sendoff at the end of "Morning Joe."

After one of his first meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Bill Clinton drank vodka shots with his chief of staff, John Podesta.

"We saw Putin and then we had the evening free. We went to the Cafe Pushkin in Moscow, and as is habit in Moscow, we started drinking vodka shots. I'm not much of a drinker, but I had plenty to drink that night," Podesta said in an interview with Runner's World published on May 1, recounting his trip to Moscow with Clinton in 2000.

A Republican candidate for the U.S. House in Georgia said he'd rather see another terrorist attack than continue to submit to airport searches by the TSA, though he later backed away from those remarks.

"Now this is going to sound outrageous, I'd rather see another terrorist attack, truly I would, than to give up my liberty as an American citizen," Bob Johnson, a doctor and candidate in Georgia's first district said, according to a video obtained by Politico. "Give me liberty or give me death. Isn't that what Patrick Henry said at the founding of our republic?"

MSNBC has apologized for a Cinco de Mayo segment Monday on "Way Too Early," in which the show's producer danced around wearing a sombrero, shaking a maraca, and pretending to drink tequila while the host recited the history of the Mexican holiday.

"It's also an excuse to drink tequila on a Monday morning at work for Louis," host Thomas Roberts said while explaining the holiday, referencing producer Louis Burgdorf.

The Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, who implied in a January speech that the First Amendment only applied to Christian faiths, said on Monday that he was talking about the biblical foundations in the United States, not the application of the law.

"It applies to the rights God gave us to be free in our modes of thinking, and as far as religious liberty to all people, regardless of what they believe," Justice Roy Moore said about the First Amendment in an interview with the Montgomery Advertiser.

Monica Lewinsky hasn't spoken publicly for years about her affair with President Bill Clinton, but now she is opening up again about the intense scrutiny she came under back then in hopes that her "own suffering" could help others experiencing similar "humiliation."

In an essay for Vanity Fair, excerpts of which the magazine posted online Tuesday, Lewinsky wrote that the 2010 suicide of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who was secretly taped kissing another man, pushed her to speak up about her experience.